


Confessions

by OpheliaIsThinking



Category: Borgias - Ambiguous Fandom, The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Blood, M/M, Roman Catholicism, Scarification, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:14:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1877811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaIsThinking/pseuds/OpheliaIsThinking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When religion becomes a tool of politics and manipulation, its followers must find their own paths to spirituality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confessions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [edgar_headgear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgar_headgear/gifts).



> Concept of scarification as religious penance inspired by Marvel's Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler).

It began when he was a young boy. He had hurt Juan worse than usual, blood erupting from his brother’s nose to fleck the cobbles of the Roman courtyard where they were playing. It had taken a long time for his father to calm him down enough to even hear his confession, eventually resorting to holding young Cesare by the shoulders as he spoke.  
  
“My son, Juan is not seriously hurt. It was an accident, nothing more.”  
  
“Tell me how to earn forgiveness, Father.”  
  
“You are already forgiven.” Rodrigo chuckled. “Go back to your play.”  
  
“Please, Father.” Cesare’s voice was threatening to waver.  
  
His father knelt in front of him, a look on his face that Cesare had not at the time been able to recognise. “You have a sweet soul, my son. Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate—”  
  
“Father, wait. You haven’t told me what I must do.”  
  
“The same thing as the rest of us, my child: pray. Te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”  
  
“Amen.”  
  
That night he had prayed until long after the candles in his room had burned low, and sleep had not come. As dawn began to creep over the city, lazing down the winding narrow streets, he had seized in frustration at the cross on his chest, pulling it tight about his throat as he held it in his tightly laced hands. The chain pinched painfully at his skin where the links joined and at last, young Cesare thought he could feel the faint warmth of God’s mercy.

# ~

Cesare Borgia was used to guilt. The panicky black churning in the pit of his stomach was so ever-present he barely noticed it anymore. He had not truly made confession in years, at least, not in a way his father would recognise. The Holy Father seemed to see his son’s immortal soul as a balance sheet, upon which sins could be tallied up against Hail Marys and Our Fathers before being eventually crossed out, leaving a clean, blank page; Cesare, rather, believed that to cross out one’s sins was to do just that, to stain the soul with even more ink in the process of rendering the details of one’s wrongdoings illegible. He had accepted the fact that there would be no place for him in the Kingdom of Heaven, there mustn’t be; no one like him could ever be allowed to pass the gates. 

He had developed over the years his own form of absolution. The goal was no longer to erase his sins, or even to be forgiven, but to— Truth be told Cesare wasn’t sure any more. He had cycled through a list of justification and explanations—penance, attrition, an aid to memory—none of which fully explained it. The desire to have a set of reasons, preferably backed up by scripture, still nagged at him often, but in his heart of hearts, the only reason he needed to continue was that it helped him sleep.

The legs of the Cardinal Borgia were a tangle of scars, prayers in Latin, Hebrew, angelic symbols, over and over the repeated image of the cross. The one true removal of sin. Though they overlapped, and thickly, it was important that each mark could still be distinguished from those around it. It was for this reason that over time they had crept up, covering more and more of his skin, his sides, arms, stomach. Sometimes he wondered what would happen to him on the day he no longer had any skin left to mark. Mostly, growing up a Borgia had taught him not to look too far into the future. Today though, he had encountered a problem. The aesthetics of this particular sacrament were important to him, the aesthetics of the grotesque; it was important to him that the lines and patterns be neat. The prayer at hand had begun on the outer side of his left hip, printed neatly across his back until the point where, halfway through a word, he could no longer reach to continue. Cesare frowned. The blood on his leg began to dry stiff.

# ~

Micheletto, like his master, did not make a habit of confession, struggling to conceive of a god that would accept apologies for sins that did not also come with a promise to stop doing whatever sinful thing one had been involved in. He prayed not out of a hope for forgiveness, but a need to feel like someone somewhere was watching over him. He had been praying less since he met Cesare.

When he did, though, it was in his master’s rooms during the day, when Cesare was busy with his father or the consistory. Micheletto, thus freed, passed the time cleaning and sharpening his many knives, muttering in an unintelligible mix of Latin and Italian. Once finished, he would strap back to himself the ones that belonged against his body, lay the rest neatly on their heavy leather roll, and lean against the foot of his master’s bed, eyes half closed, waiting for Cesare to return.  
  
“When I don’t have need of you, what do you do? Do you just stay in here for hours?”  
  
Micheletto opened his eyes without starting; he’d heard Cesare enter, recognised him by his step. “Not always, your Eminence.”  
  
“But usually?”  
  
“Yes, my lord.”  
  
“Today?”  
  
“Yes, my lord.”  
  
Cesare crossed the room to light the candles beside the rapidly darkening windows. “Micheletto,” he said abruptly, gazing out. “I would ask something of you.”  
  
Micheletto was already on his feet, slightly less than an arm’s reach behind Cesare. “My lord?”  
  
“I would avail myself of your discretion.”  
  
He stood silent.  
  
“I would avail myself also of your hands.” Cesare turned. “I seem to have begun a task I cannot finish alone.”  
  
“I am at your Eminence’s service.”

Cesare held Micheletto’s gaze a few beats longer before turning away, unbuttoning the front of his robes. The leather in Micheletto’s boots creaked slightly as he stiffened. Cesare undressed in silence, laying the heavy fabric of his cardinal dress on his bed, piece by piece, smoothing the fabric with the backs of his fingers.  
  
“Do you know your prayers, Micheletto?” Cesare stood naked before him. Micheletto kept his eyes steady, forward. Cesare smiled, gesturing down at himself. “Not that it matters, there is reference enough.”  
  
Micheletto swallowed, looking down at the webs of white lines that covered much of his lord’s body. “How many are there?”  
  
“One for every sin. So quite a few.” Cesare replied levelly.  
  
“What do you need of me, my lord?”  
  
“This one is unfinished.” Cesare pointed. “I would have you complete it.”  
  
Micheletto stepped back, his heart drumming so he thought Cesare must surely hear it. “My lord.”  
  
“I would have you do this, Micheletto,” Cesare repeated.  
  
Micheletto inclined his head. “My lord.”

# ~

Cesare was expending what felt like all of his considerable self-control not to shake. He hooked his feet behind the legs of the chair he was sitting on, arms wrapped around the tall back. He counted the harsh sounds of Micheletto sharpening his blade, timing his own breaths.  
  
“My lord?” His manservant was standing beside him.  
  
“I am ready.”  
  
Micheletto knelt behind him. “The blade is sharp, my lord. This will not hurt.” Cesare thought briefly that he had never heard such gentleness in the man’s tone.  
He drew in a sharp breath, unable to suppress the shudder that ran over him when the blade first touched his skin. Micheletto paused before gently placing his free hand flat at the base of Cesare’s neck, just between his shoulder blades. His hand was warm. Cesare could feel the calluses on his manservant’s palm scrape against the skin of his back as he drew breath.  
  
“Shall I continue, my lord?”  
  
“Yes. Yes, finish it.”

This time he focused on the hand on his neck, the subtle movements of it as Micheletto adjusted the angle of his body. The blade tracing slowly, precisely across his back was surely leaving a trail not of blood, but of white light. Micheletto was muttering under his breath.  
  
“What are you saying?”  
  
“I was reciting the prayer, my lord. I thought it appropriate.” He fell silent.  
  
“Continue, Micheletto.” Cesare let his head fall forward to rest on his arms. “Pray for me.”  
  
Cesare felt the blade stutter ever so slightly.  
  
“Yes, my lord.”  
  
Head down, eyes closed against the ancient words tracing across his back and the inside of his eyelids, Cesare mouthed along with him.

The change of sensation as Micheletto put down the knife to wipe him clean of blood took a while to register.  
  
“It is done, my lord.”  
  
Cesare smiled, slowly becoming aware that he had no words. It was an unusual feeling for him. Micheletto was gently cleaning the wounds with a warm cloth, going slowly over the places where thick clots were stuck to his skin.  
  
“Am I still bleeding?”  
  
“A little, my lord. Hold still.” Micheletto pressed the cloth against Cesare’s back, holding it firmly in place with both hands. Cesare, still leaning on the back of the chair, found himself listening to Micheletto’s breathing, the in and out so much softer than the earlier strike of knife on stone.

The steady pressure was released as Micheletto peeled the cloth from him.  
  
“It is done.” He stood, his fingers brushing the back of Cesare’s neck. Moving round in front of the chair, he took Cesare’s hands, helping him to his feet. Cesare shivered as the cool night air moved against his skin. Immediately, Micheletto was handing him his nightshirt, helping him to pull it over his head. Cesare moved forwards to stand at the window, Micheletto as ever at his shoulder. The two of them looked out over the Holy City, invisible in the night except as a patchwork of candlelit windows.  
  
“This is your absolution, my lord?”  
  
“It is more honest than anything given by my Holy Father in years.”  
  
Micheletto made a small sound, a fragment of speech rapidly reconsidered.  
  
“Speak, Micheletto.”  
  
“I—I too have not given confession in too long, my lord.”  
  
Cesare breathed in, the scent of Rome almost masked by the heavy incenses of the Vatican. “Perhaps such things will always be difficult for men like us.”  
  
“You misunderstand me, my lord. I would give my confession now. In my own way.”  
  
Cesare turned. His manservant, closer than he expected, did not step back. Cesare could feel the faint tickle of his breath. The man’s blue eyes held his own until Cesare nodded. Micheletto let out the slightest of exhalations before sinking to his knees at Cesare’s feet. He took his hands gently, reverently, pressing his lips to the cross scars on the back of his master’s wrists and holding the knuckles to his forehead.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”


End file.
